A few days later Wanda was in the factory dining room that had become their makeshift dormitory, arms flailing, striking out at anyone who came near her. When she had been restrained, she was diagnosed as having suffered a complete nervous breakdown, brought on by the shock of the horror she had witnessed. To this day she is haunted by the memory of five eyeballs on a plank amid the debris of her barracks. There could be few more stark images of the reality of modern warfare.
* * *
On the afternoon of Sunday, 25 July, Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann announced that nobody would be allowed to leave the city without special permission – and thereby ensured the deaths of thousands in the coming days. 58Certain that what had happened was merely the beginning of something much larger, those who had strings to pull did so now. However, even those who won permission to leave often found it difficult to do so because the train network had been severely disrupted. Those who had cars drove to safety, perhaps using petrol they had set aside for such an emergency. 59Parents who could afford to do so sent their children to friends or relatives outside Hamburg. Some of the homeless, the Ausgebombten, were evacuated to other parts of northern Germany in specially commissioned army lorries while others were forced to find shelter where they could in the city.
The majority of Hamburgers had nowhere to go, and no means of transport in any case. Thousands of people were involved in emergency operations and could not leave the city because they were desperately needed – there would be no let-up for several days. The rest had to stay and go to work as normal: without permission to leave it would have been impossible to find work, shelter or rations elsewhere.
The people of Hamburg did what the people of Essen, Bochum, Cologne, Warsaw, London and many other European cities had done before them: they gritted their teeth and got on with life as best they could. Although they expected another attack, nobody could have predicted what was about to befall them. The raids that were yet to come would be unparalleled in history.
11. The Americans Join the Fray
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but,
boys, it is all hell
General Sherman 1
The people of Hamburg did not have to wait long for the second strike. The Allies had been talking about ‘round-the-clock bombing’ ever since the Casablanca Conference in January: now, for the first time, it was to become reality. Even as the British bombers were arriving home, American planes were being prepared for a follow-up attack. Hamburg would be given just fifteen hours to recover before the bombs fell again.
There were lots of sound reasons as to why the Americans were keen to attack the city again so soon. For a start, the staff at the USAAF bomber headquarters knew that the RAF had jammed German radar the night before, and they hoped that the chaos this had caused would give American crews a better chance of getting in and out alive. More importantly, they hoped their bombers would do greater damage by attacking immediately: a sudden daylight bombing would keep the city in disarray and cause even more damage when it was least able to cope. Hamburg’s firefighters could not be in two places at once: while they were putting out fires in the west, US bombers would drop their bombs in the south, in Hamburg’s harbour district.
The man who made the decision to bomb Hamburg that day was Brigadier-General Frederick L. Anderson, Jr, the head of the Eighth Air Force’s VIII Bomber Command. Anderson was one of Hap Arnold’s ‘wonderboys’, an energetic thirty-seven-year-old who had seen rapid promotion over the past few months. In mid-May he had been given command of 4th Bombardment Wing, but was only there for six weeks before he was promoted to his present job. By all accounts he was an enthusiast for long-range strategic bombing and when, later in the war, it looked as though precision bombing might be failing, he was not averse to the idea of area bombing instead. 2He was certainly interested in the way the British were conducting their bomber war: that night he would board an RAF plane bound for Essen to see for himself what area bombing looked like. 3
Anderson regularly attended Sir Arthur Harris’s planning sessions. RAF Bomber Command Headquarters was only a ten-minute drive from his own headquarters at Wycombe Abbey, and it seemed prudent to learn at first-hand what his British partners would do that night before he planned his follow-up for the next day. So, when Harris had placed his finger on the map at Hamburg on 24 July, Anderson was present. Later that morning he had held a meeting with his own staff officers at which he, too, chose Hamburg as his target. Unlike Harris, however, Anderson specified exactly which buildings they were to aim for. Out of all the possible targets in the city, he picked two: the Blohm & Voss shipyards, in the south of the city, and the Klöckner aero-engine factory, in the south-east. According to the latest directive from the Combined Chiefs of Staff, they were two of the highest priority targets in Germany. 4
Anderson’s staff knew that this mission would be their toughest yet. The USAAF had tried to attack the city only once before, exactly a month ago, and that mission had ended in disaster. The Germans had jammed their navigational aids, and the weather had been so cloudy that most of the American planes had been unable to find each other, let alone the target. They had only got as far as the German coast before the Luftwaffe had arrived in such numbers that they had been forced to turn back. Eighteen planes had been shot down. As the 303rd Bombardment Group’s group leader had said in his official report afterwards, the mission had been ‘futile’. 5
The American planners were determined not to let the same thing happen again. First, they checked the weather: there was no point in attempting an attack on Hamburg if the target was covered with cloud. The forecast was for clear skies – but to make sure, a reconnaissance flight was sent to Heligoland early on the day of the attack. When it returned with reports of perfect conditions, the raid was given the go-ahead. 6
The air-force staff then devised a plan to confuse the Germans, and give their own crews the best possible chance of reaching the target and getting back safely. Hamburg was not the only city they would bomb, so it was important to co-ordinate all the different attacks to make sure they complemented each other. It was also important to conceal their true targets until the last possible moment: once the Germans knew where they were heading they would be able to lie in ambush.
Three separate forces would fly. The first was bound for the Heinkel aircraft factory at Warnemünde, on the Baltic coast. This wing would fly out towards Germany, but while it was still over the sea it would suddenly turn northwards, as if it were heading for Denmark. The idea was to draw the German fighters out of their airfields too early, so that by the time the Americans actually crossed the coast they would be forced to return to their bases to refuel.
The second force was smaller – just three bomb groups, or about sixty planes – and was bound for the U-boat yards at Kiel. It would fly across the North Sea with the Warnemünde wing, and also turn northwards, then suddenly switch back on itself. Again, this was designed to confuse the Germans, conceal the true aim and draw out the Luftwaffe fighters too early.
About forty minutes behind those forces there were two combat wings, bound for Hamburg. The first was to bomb the Blohm & Voss shipyards, while the second was to attack the Klöckner aero-engine factory. By this time, so the planners thought, the Luftwaffe would be back at their airfields refuelling, thus giving the Hamburg force time to get to the target relatively unmolested. After the city had been bombed, both combat wings would join up with the Kiel force, and they would fly home together. By now the Luftwaffe would be back in the air, and it was safer to fly